some kinda dilemma [1/?]

i don't feel like enough of a girl.

i can gladly say that i am, in fact, a girl. i've had no qualms about that my whole life. i am happy to be a girl and i am happiest around my girl friends. i went to a girls school. i am surrounded by girls and women in all stages of my education and professional life. i would like to keep it this way until i am laid six feet under, and beyond.

but i live in a society.

i'm not here to talk about said society, and i'm not here to lament my own status as a girl in society. i live a privileged life, and have no stories of social injustice to be told about myself. i am just here to talk about my girl/human feelings as a girlwoman living in 2025 as someone who has just stepped into full adulthood. i am a tad bit queer, but i'm not currently in the phase of life to be experimenting, nor do i feel at all motivated to do so. i am a feminist, but. this post is about me, as a girl, in relation to men. unfortunately.

this is going to be a stream-of-consciousness post that may make no sense whatsoever. but bear with me. or don't. up to you.

i have never thought of myself in relation to men. growing up in an all-girl environement, and currently pursuing a majority-woman profession, i have never once doubted my capabilites as a contributing member of society with regards to my gender. i think i do very well for myself in my education and career. so this is nothing about that.

but anyway, the point: i'm at this point in my life where my friends are talking about marriage with their long-term partners. 

and i'm here with no experience whatsoever.

i've never been in a relationship. i talked to one guy i was in cram school with in highschool but he was asking me for advice with girls in his school that was in another world (across the city). i talked to another guy i met at the end of highschool, into university, but we were friends who liked geeky stuff and i didn't actually really like him that much and we don't talk anymore after a drunken mistake. i talked to another guy who was a foreigner while we were interning in university together, but he went home and just didn't have any reason to talk anymore. so. the extent of my romantic experiences have been fleeting crushes and failed talking stages. really, nothing concrete, no potential whatsoever.

so, i feel left out. in a way i've never been before. because back when we were all in highschool, there was never any romantic drama. sure, there was gossip, but at the time we knew that whatever happened then would probably run its course as soon as we graduated. and well, it did. except everyone else seemed to immediately find love that would last to this day, and i was left floating around. in university, i was in a group of girls who were also single, and we had our fun in between classes hanging out and crushing over international transfer students. those friendships didn't really go anywhere after i graduated, so they're rendered somewhat irrelevant to this long-winded story.

all the while, i never actually thought about romance. i thought it would be nice, but it was never at the forefront of my mind i had a good thing going on; i had friends, i had academia, i had hobbies. it was good.

fast forward to now. i'm working. i had a job i loved with all my heart that left no room to think about anything else, other than how fun i was having travelling and doing what i had always wanted to. i came home to weekends of lunch and dinner plans with friends. i live at home, so my family's always there for me. then, i had to leave that job due to circumstances out of my own control and i got a proper office job.

it's a good deal, it's a great deal even. it's flexible and it pays well. but it's mindless and excruciatingly boring. it's routine. it's everything i wanted to avoid in my career. i'm leaving soon, but that doesn't matter; it's done its damage on my psyche.

it's not the job itself. while i do not enjoy it, it is once more, not relevant to this story, as much as it is in contextualising how i feel, to some tiny extent.

so, i'm working. all my friends are working. now let's get into more context: my group of friends are people i've known since highschool. we've all kept in contact over the years in varying degrees of closeness. most of them had flown of for a few years to study abroad. it's only recently that we're all back in the same city, within at most, a 20 minute drive from each other. we hang out a bunch-- almost every week. after-work drinks, late night matcha runs, weekend partying, monthly lunches at each other's houses, group beach holidays. we're a happy bunch, and i'm grateful. it feels like home.

but you know when you know someone so well? i do, but i don't. i have never understood men. but after spending so much time with my guy friends this past year, well, i still don't get them.

i like having guy friends. they're funny and they're surprisingly sensitive and wise. well, the ones i've got at least. they're great, they're fun, they're stupid, they're good banter, and they're good friends.

but i can't help but feel that i've stopped being a girl to them. don't get me wrong, i never want to be looked at differently. i don't want to be the subject of guy talk. but it is some kind of out-of-body experience when you realise that some things are said or done to you because you have passed the realm of being a girl, and just becoming a non-descript, almost genderless friend.

it's just the small things really. like i was at a burger stall with a guy friend who i would count among the people i'm closest to, but i don't always talk to. we're close just from the sheer amount of time we spent together. he's one of the few that didn't go abroad for university, so we've consistently spent time together in a trio with my closest girl friend. he's a good guy, but he has a hard time opening up about his feelings. but he takes care of us, and he cares, as much as he knows how.

so. burger stall. it was just the two of us. the rest had gone up to get a table and we were waiting for our orders. he then said that someone he knew was at the bar, so he ran up to say hi. i didn't mind. we were waiting, anyway.

he ran back down, and we got our burgers. he got his, and i started eating mine. then he said he forgot something in the car. totally fine! i'm still eating my burger. so he ran off with his burger.

i'd assumed he'd come back to finish before we went up to the bar to join our friends. but i watched him from across the street, where he was stuffing his face and throwing the wrapper away, before running up to the bar. alone. without me.

i shrugged to myself and continued eating my burger. alone.

then i went up, threw a bit of a fit, to which he said he thought i had already gone up to the bar. but he hadn't even looked in the direction of the burger stall to check if i was still there or not. i rolled my eyes and sat at the opposite side of the table, away from him. the night went on. it was whatever.

but then an ugly thing began to claw its way into my mind. he would have never done the same had the third member of our trio been there. my best friend.

this, is something i can say with confidence. and i don't know what to do with it.

i'm tired now. will write again soon.